Genius Brands’ Lloyd Mintz on positioning the company to sprint out of the gate and maintaining a steady dialogue with partners.
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected every country across the globe.
LicensingSource.net has been catching up with a selection of licensors and licensing agents from Europe, the US and Russia to find out more about how their businesses have been affected and how they see the rest of 2020 playing out.
Today, we head to the US to get the views of Lloyd Mintz, svp global consumer products, Genius Brands.
“After the initial challenge of the sudden shift to working from home, everything has been full steam ahead. In fact, I would say that the entire company has been busier than ever. While we are mindful of the new situation under which we are all currently living and working, we are also hopeful that we will all collectively emerge in the relatively near to mid-term, and we want to be poised to move aggressively in the back half of 2020 into 2021.
Everyone is going to want and need to make up for lost momentum, and we have made every effort to position Genius Brands to sprint out of the gate and maintain that pace for the foreseeable future.
We have maintained a steady dialogue with all of our partners. I think everyone has been understanding and respectful of each other’s need to re-orient and get back on their feet. It was a staggering shock to the system, so to speak, but it seems as though everyone is poised to bounce back pretty aggressively. We have negotiated and closed some deals during this time and expect the pace will pick up as retail reopens and people start looking toward 2021.
The greatest challenge is the inventory backlog that retailers will need to work through at their stores and the next hurdle will be people feeling comfortable leaving their homes and visiting retailers and shopping.”
This feature originally appeared in the summer 2020 edition of Licensing Source Book. To read the full publication, click on this link.
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